The American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN) recently honored the Children’s Intestinal Rehabilitation Center at Le Bonheur (CIRCLe) as a Clinical Nutrition Team of Distinction. This award recognizes excellence in clinical nutrition practice, scholarship, and professional service. To be considered, teams must have representation by dietetics, medicine, nursing, and pharmacy.
The CIRCLe team was formed in November 2007 to investigate and ultimately improve outcomes in intestinal failure patients. Over the last 7 years, this team has developed an aggressive patient care plan and research agenda with the primary objective of standardizing and optimizing overall patient management through an evidence-based, integrated, and interprofessional approach to patient care. In addition to establishing an outpatient clinic in 2010 for intestinal failure patients, the team also conducts interprofessional inpatient rounds and is available for consults as needed. The team has also been responsible for the development of clinical guidelines (post-operative enteral feeding, ethanol lock therapy) that have directly impacted care of this high-risk group of patients. Team members include clinical dietitians (Elizabeth Hamilton, Amanda Helton, Dita Rago), clinical nurse coordinator (Ila McDonald), clinical pharmacists (Drs. Mike Christensen, Cathy Crill, Oscar Herrera), pediatric gastroenterologists (Drs. Mark Corkins, Linda Lazar, Wednesday Sevilla), pediatric surgeons (Drs. Alex Feliz, Eunice Huang, Tim Jancelewicz), and neonatologists (Drs. John Ferguson, Ramesh Krishnan). The CIRCLe Team will be honored February 15, 2015 at Clinical Nutrition Week in Long Beach, CA.